The objective of the Weill Cornell AHRQ fellowship program is to train post-doctoral physicians to conduct methodologically rigorous health services research in order to improve he effectiveness and outcomes of clinical practice, to improve access to high quality and cost-effective care, and to translate this into relevant health policy and practice improvement initiatives. Our strength is over a decade of experience in training physicians to perform hypothesis-driven multidisciplinary research and preparing them to be independent investigators, with a special emphasis on developing underrepresented minority and women investigators. A central tenet of our program's philosophy is that fellows'projects must be independent, not merely an extension of ongoing faculty projects. We believe that the independence of the project is key to developing future investigators who have the capacity to conduct scientifically rigorous research on their own and successfully compete for external funding. Rationale and Design/Faculty: The two-year program requires participation in a Master's Degree program in Health Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology. The program has a formal didactic curriculum designed to provide conceptual as well as practical foundations and skills in health services research. Fellows acquire 14 core competencies in health services research by completing 26 courses in the formal curriculum, by participating in multidisciplinary conferences and by integrating the resultant knowledge and skills in the design and conduct of their own independent research project. Fellows devote 70% of their time to their own project which is focused in one of AHRQ's priority areas. We request 6 post-doctoral slots for each year of the award. This program is built on the strengths of a multidisciplinary team, which is comprised of faculty with diverse expertise in the health services research, clinical epidemiology, health economics, biostatistics, and behavioral science drawn from the Ithaca, NYC and Westchester campuses of Cornell University, Columbia University, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Our faculty have collaborated on multiple innovative and successful research projects, and training programs over the last decade. Our new initiative with New York Presbyterian Hospital and our collaboration with the New York Academy of Medicine's Center for Urban Studies provide an outstanding infrastructure for this program.